- Paperback: 144 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Classics (Feb 28 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0142437034
- ISBN-13: 978-0142437032
- Product Dimensions: 17.5 x 15.4 x 1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 91 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #789,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Book Description
For most of his life, Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was the most famous writer in the world. His legacy includes the nineteenth century's most celebrated works of drama, fiction, memoir, and criticism. But in his day Hugo was know foremost as a poet-indeed the greatest French poet of the age. He wrote with passion about history, erotic experience, familial love, philosophy, nature, social justice, art, and mysticism.
In this new bicentennial edition, acclaimed poet and translator Brooks Haxton offers an exquisite selection of Hugo's finest work: love poems, historical tableaux, elegy, and idyll, including his incomparable "Boaz Asleep," which Marcel Proust praised as the most beautiful poem of the nineteenth century.
In this new bicentennial edition, acclaimed poet and translator Brooks Haxton offers an exquisite selection of Hugo's finest work: love poems, historical tableaux, elegy, and idyll, including his incomparable "Boaz Asleep," which Marcel Proust praised as the most beautiful poem of the nineteenth century.
About the Author
Born in 1802, the son of a high officer in Napoleon’s army, Victor Hugo spent his childhood against a background of military life in Elba, Corsica, Naples, and Madrid. After the Napoleonic defeat, the Hugo family settled in straitened circumstances in Paris, where, at the age of fifteen, Victor Hugo commenced his literary career with a poem submitted to a contest sponsored by the Académie Française. Twenty-four years later, Hugo was elected to the Académie, having helped revolutionize French literature with his poems, plays, and novels. Entering politics, he won a seat in the National Assembly in 1848; but in 1851, he was forced to flee the country because of his opposition to Louis Napoleon. In exile on the Isle of Guernsey, he became a symbol of French resistance to tyranny; upon his return to Paris after the Revolution of 1870, he was greeted as a national hero. He continued to serve in public life and to write with unabated vigor until his death in 1885. He was buried in the Pantheon with every honor the French nation could bestow.
Brooks Haxton's poetry translations include Dances for Flute and Thunder: Poems from the Ancient Greek, which was nominated for a PEN translation award, and Victor Hugo's Selected Poems for Penguin Classics.
Brooks Haxton's poetry translations include Dances for Flute and Thunder: Poems from the Ancient Greek, which was nominated for a PEN translation award, and Victor Hugo's Selected Poems for Penguin Classics.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
HUGO'S POETRY,
By
This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)
Moving and brilliant poems. Of course any English translation will leave much to be desired (the "language centers" of Hugo's brain were apparently intrinsically French), but this volume captures much of the imagery and emotion of the original poems. Fortunately, the original French is given on the adjacent pages.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful to have!,
By A. R. Greenlee - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)
Since almost no poetry by Hugo is available in English, this is a welcome sampling. THAT deserves five stars. The introduction is informative (and none too shy on opinions). The French original on the facing page is helpful for comparing with the translation. And the translator's notes on his method of translating put things in perspective. As usual, the translator must make a choice between two basic options: literalness (which may sacrifice "tone" or "rhyme"), or keeping the "sound" or rhyme of the original (which may necessitate substituting English words or phrases for those in the original). The current translator opted for the former choice. Fine. How odd, then, that he also mixes in elements of the second choice! The result sometimes is that you have neither the tone nor the rhyme nor the literal rendering of the original.In one poem, for example, Hugo ends with a line that is six syllables long, with three of those words (and four syllables in those three words) carrying the same vowel sound -- "aw". Those words in French are "maison," "sans," and "enfants" (the last word ending the line.) Six syllables, four homonyms! Not bad! However, the translation has more than six syllables, and no words that sound alike,and some of the words in the translation are not in the original. How does that convey either the tone, mood, or rhyme of the original? In fact, the orignal has four phrases at the end of the poem, each of which repeats a pattern of contrast using the words "sans" ("without"): spring without flowers, a cage without bird, a hive without bees, a house without children. This obvious, simple, and intentional pattern is not maintained in the translation, and I wonder why. Instead, "poetic" license is in evidence by the translator. Part of Hugo's madness in this method may well have been to end with his clever (and lyrical) six-syllable, four-homonym ending, and in English, the "pay off" would not have been there. Still, how much license should a translator take? In all, I am glad to have these poems, but I am restless till someone can find a way to come closer to Hugo. Maybe I should just learn French.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Selected Poems (Penguin Classics),
By l.yin - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)
The book is in good condition, and I like your service. The item always comes faster than the expected date. Thank you, Luoth
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